lynching in India

West Bengal: Two Lynched Over Suspicion of Cattle Theft

Rabiul Islam and Prakash Das were ferrying two cows when they were stopped and beaten by a mob.

Coochbehar: Two persons have been lynched over suspicion of cattle theft in Coochbehar district and 14 persons have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the incident, police said.

It took place on Thursday in the Mathabanga area when Rabiul Islam and Prakash Das were ferrying two cows in a van.

Also read: Home Ministry’s RTI Reply Reveals Lack of Progress in Measures to Curb Lynching

According to police, a mob stopped the van and unloaded the cows, which they claimed were stolen from the area a few days ago and were being taken to cattle smugglers.

The mob then beat the two men and set the van on fire. The police admitted them to a hospital where they succumbed to their injuries.

The West Bengal assembly had recently passed the West Bengal (Prevention of Lynching) Bill, 2019, which is waiting for the governor’s assent.

Incidents of Violence, Discrimination Not Conforming to India’s Protections for Minorities: US

The acting assistant secretary of State for South and Central Asia Alice G. Wells said that the US calls upon the Indian government to “fully” uphold the universal right to religious freedom.

Washington: Incidents of violence and discrimination against minorities, including attacks on Dalits and Muslims by cow vigilantes, are not in keeping with India’s legal protections for minorities, a top US diplomat told a congressional subcommittee.

Noting that the US is proud to partner with India, acting assistant secretary of State for South and Central Asia Alice G. Wells said its constitution mandates a secular state that upholds the rights of all citizens to practise religion freely, freedom of expression and speech, and equal treatment before the law.

“Incidents of violence and discrimination against minorities in India, including cow vigilante attacks against members of the Dalit and Muslim communities, and the existence of anti-conversion laws in nine states are not in keeping with India’s legal protections for minorities,” Wells told the subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and Nonproliferation of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

She said the US calls upon the Indian government to “fully” uphold the universal right to religious freedom and protect vulnerable individuals, “including the 1.9 million people in Assam at risk for statelessness because of questions about their citizenship; condemn all incidents of violence; and hold perpetrators accountable”.

Last May, 68% of eligible Indian voters went to the polls for a historic election, Wells said, adding Indians of every religion, caste, sect, and socio-economic background participated in the remarkable display of parliamentary democracy, which also witnessed a record turnout of women voters.

Also read: US Congress Committee Urges India to Lift Kashmir Communication Blackout

“India’s robust civil society and democratic institutions are all the more remarkable given its immense size and the challenges it faces in terms of development,” she said on Monday.

These include India’s overwhelmed and understaffed court system and its unique federal structure that at times complicates policing and governance. With more than a quarter of the population living at or below the poverty line, local governments often struggle with competing priorities, she added.

Observing that India is a vigorous democracy that enjoys a strong and growing strategic partnership with the US, Wells said that New Delhi-US relationship is broad in scope and multifaceted.

“As with every country, we engage with India on issues of human rights and religious freedom. We also press India for progress on parental child abduction, consistent with the priority we place on safeguarding the welfare of US citizens abroad, including children,” she said in a prepared statement submitted to the Congressional subcommittee on the eve of the hearing “Human Rights in South Asia: Views from the State Department and the Region”.

India is the birthplace of four major world religions Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It is home to the world’s third-largest Muslim population, a diverse community of sects that includes Sufis, Shia, and Bohra. Roughly 3% of India’s citizens are Christian, and notably, Christians are the religious majority in three of India’s 29 states, she said.

“India has a proud history with the Jewish faith the oldest synagogue in the country dates to 1568. We also appreciate India’s longstanding support for Tibetan refugees and the Dalai Lama. Adding to this diverse mosaic are India’s many regional and linguistic communities. Indeed, on every Indian rupee note the denomination value is printed in 15 different languages a remarkable display of India’s rich diversity,” Wells said.

(PTI)

Movie Review: ‘The Hour of Lynching’ Captures Two Sides of an India in Flux

The documentary looks at the aftermath of Rakbar Khan’s lynching – for both the victim’s family and the perpetrators.

In one of the more memorable scenes from Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya’s first documentary, The Cinema Travellers (2016), the camera settled on the faces of the audience members in a tent, in a village in Maharashtra, in thrall to cinema. It was a tender scene encapsulating the power of movies – the different ways in which they unite and liberate us, make us human.

There’s a similar scene in their latest short documentary, The Hour of Lynching, where the camera focuses on the people in the audience, sitting under a tent, in a village in Rajasthan. This time, though, they’re not watching a film but listening to an activist from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad – their faces impassive, but not devoid of curiosity, as if waiting for a nudge for this universe to make sense.

The speaker, Nawal Kishore Sharma, chief of the VHP’s gau raksha cell, says, “The youth serving our religion have been arrested” – referring to the lynching of a Muslim dairy farmer, Rakbar – “on mere pretext of constitutional law. Our cow protectors have been jailed [in Rakbar’s case]. That night [of his death] I was with them. And now I’m also being made an accused.”

He speaks for one more minute, telling his listeners that “Mother Cow is imploring” them to rise and “behead the heathens”, and that if Hindus “lose their minds” they’ll clear “Hindustan’s kachdapeti (garbage)” – the 200 million Muslims in the country. People applaud and raise slogans of “Jai Shri Ram”.

Cinema was a soothing balm in one tent, a wonderful illustration of the human spirit, but what would you call the second one? Isn’t that case too, it can be argued, an example of human spirit – a common cause that brings people together, empowers them, and makes them connected? If filmmaking is understanding the human condition, then how would such a movie look where the human itself is under question – easily swayed, faltering, crumbling?

Also read: Why Hindutva’s Dark Fantasy About India’s Muslims Could Become Real

The Hour of Lynching opens with a title card which, in part, reads, “In 2014, Narendra Modi was elected Prime Minister of India. Since then, 47 people have been murdered in cow-related hate crimes. Seventy-six percent of these were Muslims.” And then, almost preempting a ‘whataboutery’ boomerang, states, “No cow-related lynchings were reported between 2010 and 2013.”

This is a powerful thesis – backed by stats and facts – laying the foundation for the rest of the documentary. But in a world where beliefs trump facts, numbers twirl in our consciousness like inconsequential back-up dancers.

A few days ago, I read, and re-read, a comment on Facebook by a New-York based Indian, on a column on Indian liberals, shared by my friend: “It is amazing how a few dozen cases of lynching (none endorsed by the central government) hog any discussion of the current government among the liberals.” It was a remarkable bit of literary baton twirling — “a few dozen lynchings”, as if even one is okay.

Divided in two parts – the first centred on Rakbar’s family in the aftermath of his murder and the second on Sharma and other Hindutva proponents – The Hour of Lynching is an account of a nation in a flabbergasting flux: a desperate desire to assert dominance, lust for violence, unchecked power and yet, a strange persecution complex. “They slaughter cows, kidnap our girls, and steal our vehicles,” Sharma tells a few villagers earlier in the documentary. “We can’t even park our unlocked bikes in front of our houses.” To this an older man in the group says, “This is a fact – we’re living in fear.”

The other part of the documentary shows what living in fear actually looks like. A few women surround Asmeena, Rakbar’s wife, consoling her. “Such is the reign of Modi,” one of them says. “The life of Muslims is worth nothing. We’re being killed like cats and dogs.” Two stories of fear separated from each other by two religions and a few kilometres. Asmeena, continuing to sob, covers her head with a saree; Sharma walks freely, issues threats, gives speeches.

Even this stark juxtaposition – of the perpetrators and the victims – could have made for a compelling documentary, as it probes their mindsets and motivations, something that’s difficult to incorporate in a news article. But Abraham and Madheshiya go further, spinning stories in a story.

Rakbar’s lynching is not just the death of one man – and of human values – but also the slow poisoning of an entire family. His relatives – controlling and patriarchal – make Asmeena mourn for months in purdah. They also, as claimed by Rakbar’s daughter Sahila, take away the compensation given to her mother. Asmeena can’t work anymore, so Sahila drops out of school, tending the family cows.

Also read: ‘Punjab Disappeared’ Recounts Mass Atrocities and the Struggle for Justice

The documentary also captures the pervasive spread of hate – now no longer confined to a political party or an ideology. At one point, Rakbar’s father, Suleiman, is smoking hookah with his friends. “If we dare express our anger, we’ll be declared terrorists and shot,” says a man with a conical beard, his face (perhaps deliberately) out of focus. “If the government stops supporting them, and gives us free reign for a day, we would seek revenge. We would go after the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] folks. We’d hunt them down, I promise!”

Amid all this, the only voice we don’t – and can’t – hear is of Rakbar’s. We see him once, at the start of the documentary, when Suleiman hands his passport-sized pictures to (presumably) another relative. The two photos, both of them slightly soiled, are identical – Rakbar, wearing a white shirt, looking into the camera; in effect, looking at us. A man who got swallowed by the night – a night that refuses to end.

How a Botched Investigation Helped Get Six Accused in Pehlu Khan’s Killing off the Hook

Four key witnesses in the Pehlu Khan lynching case, including his two sons Irshad and Aarif, were allegedly fired at on Saturday morning, while they were on their way to a court in Behror to submit their testimony.

Jaipur: Four key witnesses of the Pehlu Khan lynching case, including his two sons, Irshad and Aarif, were allegedly fired upon on Saturday morning, while they were on their way to a court in Behror to submit their testimony.

Unknown men in a black SUV, without a number plate, began pursuing their car near Neemrana and open fired at them.

“As we crossed Neemrana, a black Scorpio started following us and tried to stop us. When we didn’t stop, they fired at us. We somehow managed to escape that route and came to Alwar to report,” Azmat, one of the witnesses who was also present in the car during the incident, told The Wire.

However, Alwar police are clueless about the incident.

“Apart from media accounts, we haven’t received any report about this incident so far. We will definitely proceed as and when it will be reported to us,” said Rajendra Singh, superintendent of police, Alwar.

In its hearing last month, the court had framed charges against the accused under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (wrongful restraint), 308 (culpable homicide) and 302 (murder), paving the way for the prosecution to present evidence to prove the guilt of the accused. The four witnesses – Irshad, Aarif, Rafiqe and Azmat – were summoned by the magistrate to submit their statements on September 29.

Kassim Khan, advocate for Pehlu Khan’s son, told The Wire, “Today, the witnesses were supposed to record their statement in the court. They were attacked on their way. It was an attempt to threaten them so that they don’t speak up.”

Pehlu Khan’s lynching

In April last year, Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer, and four others, including his two sons, were attacked by cow vigilantes in Behror, Alwar. They were returning to their homes in Haryana’s Nuh with cows they had purchased at a cattle fair in Jaipur. Accusing them of being cattle smugglers, the mob assaulted them for almost three hours between 7 pm and 10 pm. Pehlu succumbed to his injuries two days later.

Before dying, Pehlu, in a written statement, accused six members of Sangh parivar-affiliated organisations of the assault. “About 200 men stopped our pick-up truck at Behror flyover and started abusing and assaulting us. While assaulting, they were taking names – Om Yadav, Jagmal Yadav, Hukum Chand Yadav, Navin Sharma, Sudheer Yadav and Rahul Saini – to refer to each other and saying that they are members of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal. They also warned that whoever passes through Behror with cows will be beaten up like this.”

An FIR was registered against the six men under various sections of the Indian Penal Code: 143 (unlawful assembly), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (wrongful restraint), 308 (culpable homicide), 379 (theft) and 427 (destruction of property). Murder was added following Pehlu’s death.

Pehlu Khan’s home in Nuh. Credit: Special arrangment

Five months later, after the crime investigation department investigated the case, the police said the six men were not involved and moved for their discharge.

Pehlu Khan, gave the statement while he admitted in the ICU at Behror’s Kailash Hospital. As per the chargesheet, Akhilesh Saxena, a doctor of the hospital, was asked to sign the statement. He refused, saying as a private doctor, he did not want to get involved in any criminal case.

His dying declaration was included as evidence. However, advocates hired by his family believe that the doctor’s refusal to sign the declaration might have undermined the evidence and it was not taken into account.

“Signature of the doctor, judicial magistrate or SDM on the dying declaration is a must. In its absence, even the dying declaration can became inadmissible, which happened in this case,” said Amir Aziz, Rajasthan high court advocate, who opposed the bail orders of the accused chargesheeted in this case.

Speaking to The Wire, Pankaj Singh, additional director general (crime) said, “Initial investigation was done by the local police and thereafter, the case came to the CID. Our contention was that for a person who is not from Behror and who is badly beaten up, it is improbable that he will rattle off names of six people. It doesn’t matter who was named or not, but whoever was confirmed by the photographic evidence and eye-witnesses’ statements was chargesheeted.”

Tampering with the statements

In the statements of the four victims other than Pehlu, taken under Section 161 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) during the course of investigation, the six men named by Pehlu are not mentioned. The victims say the police deliberately omitted their names to weaken the case.

“We were called for our statements only once by the additional superintendent of police. We named all those six men and others who assaulted us. We are illiterate and can’t verify what they have written as our statement. One thing is sure, the police are helping the accused,” Aarif, son of Pehlu Khan, told The Wire.

“Whenever we went for the case hearing, we were threatened. Some men warned us that if we speak up, they will kill us too. Whatever monetary aid we received has been exhausted and we are not really sure if justice will be delivered.”

Their advocate hints at the role played by political factors. “Since there is no compulsion of signature of the witness on the statements of section 161 of the CrPC, they can be moulded by the police in whichever way they want. The trial proceeds on the basis of the police report, which is susceptible to be influenced by political interests,” said Amir Aziz.

The identical statements of the four others in the chargesheet read, “On April 1, 2017, at 4 pm, my brother, father and I were returning to our village Jai Singh Pur in Nuh in a pick-up after purchasing two cows and two calves for Rs 45,000 from Harmada, Jaipur. We purchased the cows for the purpose of selling them. At 7 pm, when we reached Behror flyover, five men on two motor cycles stopped us, pulled us out of the pick-up and started beating us. Crowd of around 150-200 people gathered as they kept on beating us. At that point, Azmat and Rafiq came there in another pick-up that was also carrying two cows and two calves. The mob stopped them too and started beating all five of us with belts, stick, kicks and punches. All of us were severely injured. The assault injured my eyes, nose, neck, ears, ribs, mouth and head because of which I lost consciousness and fell down.”

The ADG said that the the CID in Rajasthan has to upload the video records of statements recorded by the CB-CID to the state data centre. “This is done so that no one can tamper with the statements and it is being followed for the past two and a half years. Just written statements are not taken because people can allege that their statements have been manipulated. Anyone can verify if the statements were recorded voluntarily or under influence,” he said.

No interrogation of the accused

According to the chargesheet, all the six accused named by Pehlu were absconding and had a Rs 50,000 reward on each of them. However, they returned home after the clean chit was given by the CID.

“If you see the records available on the Rajasthan high court website, the six people named by Pehlu are not included in the chargesheet. They were not questioned before the investigation was concluded,” said Aziz. The advocates say they never came into judicial or police custody.

When asked whether the six accused were questioned by the police before the investigation was concluded, Singh replied, “We found out from their quarters also and gave the chance to this six people to give their side of the story. We collected all possible photographs. Also, we got the Base Transceiver Station (BTS) location and telephone numbers used from the towers and then tally them with the statements of people. Only those corroborated by these three parameters were named and chargesheeted.”

Following Pehlu’s death, 200 other ‘unidentified’ people were listed as accused in the murder case. Nine other men were also identified based on video footage of the incident, including two minors, and were arrested on the charges of murder. These were Vipin Yadav, Ravindra Kumar, Dayanand, Kaluram, Yogesh, Neeraj, Pavan, Bhim Singh and Deepak.

Ravindra is the only accused who was interrogated during the investigation. In his statement to the police, Ravindra said, “When around 7 pm, I was crossing apex factory at NH8, I saw Dayanand and others beating a few people near a pick-up. I asked them to stop, but they didn’t listen to me. So, I took their pictures and made a video on my phone.”

According to the chargesheet filed by Behror SHO Ramesh Sinsinwar, the police found a wooden stick and belt and confiscated the motorcycle used during the assault from a person not named by Pehlu. Yet, eight of the nine accused who were arrested are out on bail and one, Deepak, withdrew his bail petition.

“Charges were dropped against Deepak. That is why there was no point of continuing with the bail petition,” said Aziz.

Pehlu Khan’s mother (R). Credit: Murali Krishnan

Presence of the six in the gaushala?

Jagmal Yadav, one of the accused named by Pehlu, is a patron of Dehmi gaushala, which is about four kilometres away from the attack site. The staff claimed that the six people were on their premises during the assault on Pehlu and the others.

Four workers of the Dehmi gaushala – Sonu Kumar, Harish Sharma, Santram and Devdutt – in their identical statements said, “I’ve been working in Dehmi Gaushala for four years now. On April 1, at around 6:30 pm, Vikram Singh and Raghuvir, assistant sub-inspectors from Behror police station along with Jagmal guruji, Om Yadav, Sudhir Yadav, Hukum Singh, Rahul Saini, Navin Sharma and about ten other people from Behror station had come to the Gaushala to return the cattle in three kentra and one pick-up. Jagmal often comes here that’s why we know him. They were here from 6:30 pm to around 8 pm.”

However, the two assistant sub-inspectors, Vikram Singh and Raghvir Singh, and one driver, Naresh Kumar who were also present in the cowshed when the assault took place, didn’t name the six accused. Their statements read, “On April 1, at around 6 to 6:30 pm, I was present at the station when cow-filled three kentra and one pick-up coming from Jaipur were stopped by VHP workers. We brought the said vehicles along with the people in it to the station and subsequently took the cattle to the Dehmi gaushala leaving those people [who were driving the vehicles] at the station. When we reached the cowshed, many people from Behror came there on their motorcycles. As we were returning the cattle, the people there received a call stating, ‘two pick-ups have been stopped near Jaipur syntax factory and the men in them are being beaten up. Kindly send police on the spot’. I called the SHO and informed him about the incident. Later, we returned the station separately.”

Issue over cause of death

When the police reached the spot, they took Pehlu and four others to Kailash hospital in Behror, where he succumbed to injuries two days later. It was here that he gave his dying declaration.

Post-mortem report of the Behror Community Health Care suggested assault to be the cause of death. “After careful examination of dead body by medical board, the cause of death was shock brought as a result of ante mortem thoraco-abdominal injuries mentioned in PMR report, sufficient to cause of death as ordinary course of nature,” the report read.

However, the report of the doctors at the Kailash Hospital and Behror CHC differed on the grounds of cause of death. The doctors in their statements to the police claimed heart failure to be the cause of death.

V.D. Sharma, a doctor at Kailash Hospital said, “When the orthopaedic expert examined Pehlu, he had no bone problems. Akhilesh Saxena, another doctor at Kailash Hospital stated that Pehlu was suffering from chronic heart disease and asthma. He said that Pehlu was treated by a heart specialist in Jaipur. On April 3, he was okay, but died around 8 pm due to heart failure.”

When The Wire contacted Akhilesh Saxena, he refused to speak about Pehlu. He said he had resigned from Kailash Hospital and other doctors of the hospital operated Pehlu, not him. Doctors at the hospital were not available to make any comment.

The advocates believe that the confusion over cause of death would give the ‘benefit of doubt’ to the accused. “Two contradictory causes of death would help the accused avoid conviction on charges of murder as they would claim Pehlu Khan died a natural death,” said Amir Aziz.

Grounds for bail of the nine arrested subsequently

The bail orders for eight out of the nine accused arrested – Vipin Yadav, Ravindra, Kaluram, Dayanand, Yogesh, Pavan, Neeraj and Bhim Singh – were granted on the basis that ‘the accused were not named in the FIR’, that ‘no specific act attributed to them’ and ‘existence of two sites of offence – Jagwas chowk and Ramkumar chowk – and presence of accused at one chowk which is not the spot of murder’. The plea also said ‘no incriminating recovery’ was made from them and ‘the case of the petitioner is akin to that of the co-accused who have been given the benefit of bail.’

“It is a deliberate attempt to twist the case in favour of the accused. In the map drawn by the police, two sites of offence are not mentioned and neither is there any record of injuries made at these two different locations. How can one prove that the injuries that caused death were made at a specific location and not the other?” Kassim Khan, advocate of Pehlu Khan told The Wire.

The bail order of Ravindra read, “In the video footage too, the petitioner is seen saving, not beating Pehlu and four others.”

“During the bail hearing of Ravindra and Kaluram, when the court asked Behror SHO Ramesh Sinsinwar about the evidence against them, he replied that it was poor and weak and insufficient to prove their offence,” said Aziz.

The remaining accused, Deepak Kumar, withdrew his bail petition as the charges against him were dropped by the police.

The family of dairy farmer Pehlu Khan. Credit: PTI

Charges of smuggling despite relevant documents

Pehlu and the others had the permit of the Jaipur Municipal Corporation for the purchase of cattle. However, all of them were booked under Sections 5, 8 and 9 of the Rajasthan Bovine Animal (Prohibition of Slaughter and Regulation of Temporary Migration or Export) Act for allegedly trying to transport the cattle out of the state without the permission of the competent authority.

They submitted an affidavit in the court, pledging they were transporting the cows to sell them to their relatives in Chor Chavandi near Tapukara, a village in Alwar and they had the rawana, receipt of fair tax, tolls and other fees payable under the Act to transport the cattle within the state.

“In their statement, they had wrongly mentioned that they were taking the cows to their homes in Haryana instead of Tapukara. So, we submitted an affidavit in this regard. Actually, rules for transportation of cattle in the state are not clear. The Bovine Act mandates the cattle transporter to possess documents of the permission of the district collector or any officer appointed by him. However, the rawana given to the transporter are issued by the municipal corporation under its commissioner, who in also equivalent to the rank of a collector,” said Kassim.

“It does not make sense for a person who purchased milch cows for Rs 45,000 to slaughter them, which would earn them a mere Rs 6,000,” he added.

The six accused people named by Pehlu Khan who were given a clean chit last year still believe Pehlu was smuggling the cows that day.

“We got a clean chit from the police, but still we are undeclared criminals in the society. Everyone is talking about Pehlu and Rakbar, but not about the previous cases of cattle smuggling filed against them. If they are so dear to everyone, then why don’t they install their statues at Rajghat?” Om Yadav, one of the six told The Wire.

Manipur Lynching Video Shows Armed Policemen Present While Victim Was Still Alive

Four policemen have been suspended and a probe has been ordered.

New Delhi: After one of several purported videos of the violence in which a 26-year-old man was lynched in Manipur’s Imphal district showed armed police personnel apparently present in the village while the man was still alive, the Manipur police said on Sunday that a probe has been ordered and action taken against four policemen.

PTI reported that a sub-inspector has been suspended and services of the three other personnel had been terminated. “One sub-inspector has been suspended while three personnel of Village Defence Forces were terminated Sunday as one of the several videos of the incident circulating on social media showed that the four personnel were present at the spot when Khan was lying unattended,” Imphal West SP Jogeshwar Haobijam Haobijam said.

A relative of Mohammad Farooque Khan who was lynched, Mujibar Rehman, told the Indian Express, “The presence of policemen shows that the villagers had probably called them and they arrived. But they did nothing to save the victim. Their role needs to be investigated.”

According to the Indian Express report, police personnel reached the spot when they heard about the violence but their vehicles were stopped on the way and they walked to the village.

“A few officials went to the spot on foot to check the situation and safeguard against any further assault until the victim could have been picked up and brought to the vehicle. A proper enquiry needs to be done — we cannot come to any conclusion from seeing a few seconds of video as to what was their role,” the newspaper quoted a senior official as saying.

On September 14, Mohammad Farooque Khan was lynched by a mob who suspected that he had stolen a two-wheeler. There were two other people with him who managed to accept, but the police does not yet know who they are.

Five people, including an Indian Reserve Battalion constable, have been arrested so far. “The hunt is on for those accused who are still absconding. We will arrest them soon,” the SP told Indian Express.

A Joint Action Committee formed against the lynching met Manipur chief minister N. Biren Singh on Sunday and gave him a signed memorandum of agreement. The first point on the agreement, according to the Indian Express, was, “The state government will suspend the erring police personnel who were on duty, as visible in video clips circulated on social media, immediately. Departmental enquiry against the erring police personnel will be completed, as per procedure, preferably within a period of one month.”

JAC convenor M.A. Zabbar was quoted as saying, “We have been assured that the absconding accused will be arrested at the earliest and the attackers will be brought to book.”

Man Lynched in UP’s Bareilly Based on Suspicion That He Stole a Buffalo

Twenty-year-old Shahrukh was working as a tailor in Dubai and had come home recently.

Bareilly (Uttar Pradesh): A young man who was home from Dubai where he worked as a tailor was lynched in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district on suspicion that he had stolen a buffalo, police said today.

Shahrukh, 20, was beaten to death last night in Bholapur Hadoliya village under the Cantt police station area here.

Four people have been arrested, said Superintendent of Police (City) Abhinandan Singh.

Shahrukh and three others had gone out last night when a group of locals caught hold of them, suspecting that they had stolen a buffalo. He was thrashed by the group while his associates managed to escape, police said.

He was admitted to hospital in a serious condition and later succumbed to injuries,

Shahrukh worked in Dubai as tailor and had recently come home, Singh said.

According to the post-mortem examination, severe beating was the cause of death, the SP said. Both sides have lodged FIRs.

Shahrukh’s brother has filed a complaint against 20-25 unnamed persons and three of his associates. The side which alleged buffalo theft have also lodged a case, the SP added.

‘Blame It on the Mob’ – How Governments Shun the Responsibility of Judicial Redress

In India, tacitly approved anti-minority violence by the State is passed off as a spontaneous clash between civilians. This attribution of visceral motivations to attackers has remained a successful strategy for politicians to shun accountability and wriggle out of inconvenient judicial trials.

Many lynchings that make headlines in India today are related to what some call ‘beef terror’. Crucially, since the first ‘cow protection’ lynching of Mohammed Akhlaq in 2015, the ruling government has offered a standard response. That the killings, while condemnable, are inevitable, for they are merely an emotional “reaction” of Hindus angered by the morally unacceptable behaviour of cow smugglers. It is a one-fits-all explanation: lynchings are ‘spontaneous’ acts of righteous anger; people have little recourse but to give in to their anger when faced with action that dishonours their religious beliefs or symbols. The case for spontaneous violence is spelt out in many different ways: “unfortunate accidents” and “reaction to x” are most popular. The ‘x’ may be replaced with any of the following: ‘high Muslim population’, ‘offensive behaviour’, ‘disrespect to religious sentiment’, ‘meat eating’ etc.

There is a clear political rationale behind terming every incident of crowd violence as ‘mob’ violence or an outcome of emotions. Attributing visceral motivations to attackers has remained a very successful strategy for politicians to shun accountability and wriggle out of inconvenient judicial trials. What can the state and its law enforcement do but stand and watch helplessly when faced with an enraged “mob”? How do we prosecute the guilty when their only crime was to give in to their impulse? The blame shifts from cognition to emotion. Coherent individuals, when assembled in a group, are termed “mobs” – a monolith of faceless, frenzied beasts – reinforcing the inevitability of the situation on hand. As a result, convictions in public violence in India are rare or extremely protracted.

But the myth of the “mob” has been refuted by social scientists since long. Randall Collins, noted for his microsociological studies of violence, has called it “misleading to fall into the rhetoric that the crowd has an emotion (such as righteous anger, vengeance etc.)” because “the idea that people become bestial in crowds, robs people of the meaningful nature of that behaviour”, as social psychologist Clifford Stott has further explained.

This makes sense for there is much evidence from studies across the world that acts of collective violence are often strategic and rational. In India especially, rationally-motivated violence is masqueraded as spontaneous acts motivated by righteous anger. Violence, therefore, becomes merely a means to a legitimate political end. The terminology is crucial here: well thought out violence is masqueraded as spontaneous, or a clash between antagonistic civilian groups whose members are overwhelmed by emotions. This is true of mass-scale riots as well as of extrajudicial killings, such as lynchings, none of which occur without the tacit approval of the ruling government.

This has an implicit logic: to sustain a functional democracy, it is critical that the state maintains a distance from explicitly mobilising crowds for attack or, rather, from giving the impression that the state has played a role in actively encouraging attackers. Whereas the act of lynching in itself is ritualistic, signalling the dominance of one group over another – thereby emotionally motivated – the sustained occurrence of lynchings cannot be devoid of institutional approval. Organisers of violence are rarely prosecuted for want of intent and the state deems itself as weak, incapacitated by low manpower, therefore unable to prevent the outburst of angry demonstrators.

Attributing spontaneity to violence against vulnerable members of the population is ingrained in India’s history, regardless of the party in power. In 2002, for example, Modi’s ruling government in the state of Gujarat blamed the emotional intensity of Hindus for perpetrating attacks on Muslims. Their heightened emotions were understandable, for, after all, theirs was a spontaneous reaction to the burning of the Sabarmati Express allegedly by Muslims when 59 Hindu karsevaks were killed. Narendra Modi had referred to Newton’s third law of motion to justify the killings (“action begets reaction”; see also, the VHP’s declaration); later, in 2013, he used the analogy of a puppy accidentally coming under the wheel of a car for the deaths of Muslims in 2002. By implication, the deaths were accidental not intentional.

The coach of the Sabarmati Express train which was torched. Credit: PTI/Files

In the context of the lynchings, Union home minister Rajnath Singh decided to draw an analogy of the cow-lynching deaths with the attacks on Sikhs in 1984, in the aftermath of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination by two Sikh bodyguards. Around 3,000 Sikhs were “lynched”, to quote the minister, in Delhi on a single day. Singh’s allusion was to the Congress, which was the party in power in the center at the time and saw some of its own leaders accused of orchestrating the violence. Incidentally, Indira’s son, Rajiv Gandhi, who was later elected as prime minister, had also resorted to calling the anti-Sikh violence spontaneous, making eclectic references: “Once a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it shakes”. By blaming the “mob”, each government has managed to shun its core responsibility of ensuring judicial redress.

Note that minority groups are rarely defended by the ‘spontaneity’ thesis for it makes sense for the vote-seeking politician to hide behind the emotions of numerically dominant voters. To illustrate, a second type of lynching has simultaneously gone on in India besides cow vigilantism. These lynchings are unconnected with religion and religious beliefs (e.g. rumours about childlifting). Unlike the ‘cow killings’, the state law and order has been quick to condemn the perpetrators of the violence and issue advisories warning people to not take law into their hands. Similarly, back in 2002, the Modi government had declared the attacks on Muslims to be spontaneous, unlike the train fire which was declared a pre-meditated conspiracy.

“I have seen it before with my own eyes in 1947 and 1984,” writes Khushwant Singh in The End of India, referring to violence during Partition and against Sikhs. “The police stood by like tamashbeens [spectators] watching the carnage. They had been tipped off not to interfere but let looters and killers teach hapless men, women and children a lesson they would never forget. In Gujarat they went several steps further. Not only did the police remain inert, when the army arrived on the scene, it was not deployed…”. In Gujarat in 2002, my own research has shown that Muslims were found to be most vulnerable in places where the BJP faced the greatest electoral competition and less vulnerable where the BJP was weak, or surprisingly, dominant. Surprising because were the attacks spontaneous, it would be correct to expect the angriest people and subsequently, the worst violence in places where the BJP was most popular.

In India, popular perception rarely questions arguments of spontaneous violence, as they lend weight to already existing perceptions of a primordial hatred between religious groups, especially Hindus and Muslims. Maya Kodnani, a BJP minister in Modi’s government in Gujarat – the only elected minister in India’s long history of Hindu-Muslim violence to be convicted of organising anti-minority attacks – had once described the anti-Muslim violence as “natural” and “part of Gujarat’s nature (prakruti)”. There was nothing the State could do, she said, because “there was a natural ghrina (hatred) and aakrosh (anger) in the heart of every Hindu and we could not control it.”

While conducting fieldwork in Ahmedabad a few years ago, both Hindus and Muslims I spoke with would tirelessly favour the primordial argument. Hindus and Muslims fight, they would say, because “they are ancient enemies”. But rarely do “enemies” fight each other in all places at all times. If violence was primordial and viscerally motivated, anger would invariably manifest into violence. In reality, this is rare – violence is the exception not the rule, to further quote Collins. Violence is always conducted by a select few and not everyone who enters an emotional state goes through with violence. Nonetheless, political leaders relentlessly project the primordial or essentialist argument as a means to justify the high propensity of people to become violent out of anger or hatred. By implication, it becomes easier to manipulate evidence which in turn leads to protracted or lopsided judicial redress.

What happened in the West

In the US, after 1877, the government rarely prevented violence against blacks in the South when it looked for support from white Southerners. Lynchings of African Americans sharply increased in the period 1892 to 1896 with the greatest number of lynchings occurring in the closely fought Louisiana gubernatorial race of 1896. After World War II, on the other hand, the government restrained anti-minority violence because the votes of blacks had begun to matter.

Donald Trump’s politics has shown that racism never really left the US, but the state-approved political lynchings and large-scale anti-minority riots of the 19th and early 20th century are unlikely to return now. However, in the 21st century, politicians in India continue to earn electoral office using a similar strategy: tacitly approved anti-minority violence is passed off as a spontaneous clash between civilians, or an “emotional reaction” of the “mob”. It is time that people of India critically review political statements that blame their (alleged) impulsiveness for every incident of fatal violence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent interview sounds promising: that the lynchings are a law and order problem. Let us hope our politicians and the perpetrators of public violence are held accountable to these words.

Raheel Dhattiwala is a sociologist trained at Oxford University. Her book with Cambridge University Press on mechanisms of decision-making and peacefulness during Hindu-Muslim violence in Gujarat is forthcoming later this year.

WhatsApp Plans India Team Amid Government Crackdown Over Spread of Fake News

The company is “actively looking for a local leader in India who can help us build a team on the ground”.

New Delhi: Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp, which has received a series of warnings and notices from the government over the spread of fake news, has said the company is planning to strengthen its local presence by hiring a top executive, who will then build an India team. The American company has been at the centre of controversy ever since mob killings and lynching incidents had flared up due to free flow of fake news on messaging platforms, especially WhatsApp.

Replying to the IT ministry’s second notice issued on July 19, the California-based company said it understands the government’s concern about the messaging app being abused as a broadcast platform. It would work hard to check the abuse, and for that the company is using both machine learning and user reports to ban accounts engaging in abnormal behaviour, according to the WhatsApp letter.

“We actively work to block accounts that are trying to misuse WhatsApp… We are also increasing our investigations into spam operations and look forward to partnering with local authorities on this effort,” WhatsApp Director and Associate General Counsel Brian Hennessy said in a July 27 letter to the government.

The letter, seen by Business Standard, also talks about WhatsApp agreeing to have a local presence in India. “It’s why we recently established a legal entity in India and are actively looking for a local leader in India who can help us build a team on the ground,” the company added.

The first notice to WhatsApp had gone out on July 2 asking the company to take remedial action in checking abuse of its platform. WhatsApp replied the next day, elaborating on the measures it would take to check spread of false or fake information.

However, as the lynchings continued, the government on July 19 issued a second notice to WhatsApp, warning it of legal action. The government notice said that WhatsApp was liable to be treated as an abettor if the platform did not take necessary actions.

“We understand the seriousness and urgency of the challenge at hand. These attacks are horrifying – which is why we’ve taken swift action and we are prepared to work closely with your ministry, the government and civil society going forward,” WhatsApp’s latest reply to the government said.

“We also agree that abuse during elections is a real concern. We are intensifying our election integrity efforts in advance of the Indian elections,” the company added.

The company even said that during the recent Karnataka elections, it had detected dozens of WhatsApp accounts engaged in “spammy’” behaviour. Those accounts were banned subsequently, WhatsApp has claimed.

However, on the issue of tracing of messages back to their source, WhatsApp said it was against the privacy and security of the app. The company pointed out that users relied on WhatsApp for sensitive conversations. Increasingly, police is using the platform to discuss investigations while citizens are reporting crimes. “Tracing private messages would undermine the private nature of the app with the potential of serious consequences for free expression, which would be very troubling to many users,” WhatsApp said.

The messaging app recently announced it would limit forwards of photos, videos and messages to five chats in India and remove the quick forward button next to media messages. Also, the platform is testing a label which marks links sent on chats as ‘suspicious’ in its bid to check spread of fake news and misinformation.

WhatsApp is among the world’s biggest messaging platforms, with more than 200 million active users in India.

By arrangement with Business Standard.

For Mewat’s Muslims, Cows Now a Source of Both Livelihood and Fear

Economic backwardness, unemployment, lack of health facilities and broken roads are issues that plague Kolgaon, Rakbar Khan’s village. But no one talks about this.

Kolgaon (Haryana): Let’s begin this conversation with the cow, which will take us to a village. The village is called Kolgaon. We are talking about the cow because the cow is currently a subject of discussion everywhere from the Supreme Court to parliament. You may ask: Why Kolgaon? Where is this village and why are we talking about it?

Kolgaon in Haryana. Credit: Moniza Hafizee/The Wire

Here is the answer.

Kolgaon is a village in Haryana’s Mewat region. Sharing its border with Alwar in Rajasthan, the village is surrounded by the Aravalli Hills on all sides. Recently, a mob attacked and lynched a Muslim man, Rakbar Khan, on the suspicion of cow smuggling in Alwar’s Ramgarh village. Rakbar used to live in Kolgaon.

Like thousands of villages in India, Kolgaon awaits development. Education, health services, pucca houses, playgrounds, clean drinking water, a drainage system – the list of issues requiring redressal is long indeed. In a nutshell, a flooded road and mobile network is all Kolgaon has to show for its development.

Around 600-700 families live in a mix of kutcha-pucca houses in the village. According to locals, 2,000 cows also inhabit the village. Two to four cows or buffaloes can be seen tied in front of every house.

Rakbar has been given a burial after his postmortem, but a week later, his wife Asmina is still inconsolable.

Asmina had to be hospitalised as she had not eaten anything since the incident. Looking at her condition, one fears she might need to be hospitalised again. Whenever someone comes to visit her, her mother-in-law lifts the veil and shows her face.

When I approach Rakbar’s mother, Habiban, to enquire about the incident, she holds my hand and makes me sit next to her. Her voice is lost in her relentless weeping. In a hoarse voice she says, “What they did to us is wrong. I just have to save my daughter-in-law. That’s all.”

She keeps holding my hand. It is the grip of a frightened person who just wants to be spared from the hatred that has taken her son’s life. She needs help to let go of the incident and be able to live in peace again.

Rakbar Khan’s wife Asmina (lying down) and his mother Habiban. Credit: Moniza Hafizee/The Wire

The family’s house has one 10’x12′ room. Next to the room is a shed, where Habiban is sitting surrounded by women relatives and neighbours.

Looking at them, it seems as though they are guarding the helpless family. Teary-eyed, all of them seem to be grieving the fact that they can do nothing for Rakbar’s family.

One cannot sit for long in such an atmosphere. Fear is buried deep. What can be done in a country where you become a victim of violence over your religious identity, which is not even your own choice? It came to be associated with you by birth and you cannot easily change it. You may hide it by changing your dress, but not from your Aadhaar card, ration card or other identity cards. And so, like Rakbar’s family, you ask yourself, “Can I be persecuted just because I am ‘me’?”

Rakbar has left behind seven children. The eldest daughter is 11, while the youngest son is one. They are yet to fully comprehend the tragedy that has befallen the family. Since morning, several mediapersons have gathered them together and clicked photographs.

Rakbar Khan’s children. Credit: Moniza Hafizee/The Wire

A single-room house, a couple of huts and five cows are the only property owned by the family. Rakbar’s father Suleman is 60 years old. Though silent now, he is a picture of grief, mourning his dead son.

Visitors are pouring in. To everyone he has the same question: is there anywhere they can take their plea? Looking at him just affirms that he has neither the strength nor the anger within him to fight.

The grief of losing his son and the question of survival is making him weak. With his young son gone, the burden of responsibility of the family has fallen on his shoulders. Being illiterate, he is afraid of legal proceedings. The horrifying death of his son has left him so scared that he finds it difficult to trust anyone.

Rakbar Khan’s house. Credit: Moniza Hafizee/The Wire

When a person from the National Legal Service Authority came to collect Rakbar’s Aadhaar card, ration card and bank details to extend financial help to the family, Suleman took him to the sarpanch, asking him to explain what he was saying.

Similarly, when the Rajasthan police arrived for the investigation and asked him to put his thumb impression on a piece of paper, Suleman roamed around for hours with the sheet asking people what was written on it and whether he should sign it or not. After being pressured by the police and receiving confirmation from several people, he finally put his thumb imprint on it.

Right now, with sluggish police action and legal processes in the country, besides the powerful accused who allegedly have political protection from the government, justice for victims like Suleman is a distant hope.

The police of two states is supposedly with Suleman, since Rakbar hailed from Haryana but was killed in Rajasthan.

When asked if any leader from the ruling party in either of the states visited the family, Rakbar’s cousin Harun says, “No. No leader from the ruling party in the two states has visited us yet. In fact, not even the district magistrate, superintendent of police or any other official from either of the districts has visited us yet.”

Rakbar Khan’s father (in green turban) and cousin Harun (in black shirt). Credit: Neha Mehrotra/The Wire

When asked about Rakbar, he tells us, “We just want Rakbar’s murderers to be hanged. We are poor people. We are not capable of smuggling cows. Rakbar has five cows and he used to sell their milk. He was a labourer and struggled to support the family. Ask anyone in the village. Nobody can tell you a bad thing about him. He had saved Rs 60,000 over a long time and purchased the two cows. Now the money and the cows – both are gone.”

The role of the police is also under scanner in the entire case. Harun says, “How can we question the police? We think the alleged gau rakshaks are to blame. They had already beaten him up brutally. His legs were fractured in several places, his hands and ribs were broken and his neck was contorted. It was a job of many people. More than the police, it is the act of VHP leader Naval Kishore Sharma’s goons. The police has rounded up several people but many of them are still free. An investigation must be carried out.”

In the village, 80% of the people are cattle-herders, and 80% of the population is Muslim. They are known as Meo Muslims.

An elderly villager, Umar, says, “People in the village are not very educated. Except for a couple of families, no one has a government job. All of us are involved in farming. There is a forest next to the village which makes an easy grazing ground for the cattle. The cost of rearing a cow is low, and comes cheaper as compared to a buffalo. A milch buffalo is priced at Rs 1-1.5 lakh while a cow can be bought for anywhere between Rs 40,000 and Rs 50,000. Due to the low maintenance requirements, people in Mewat are in the habit of rearing cows.”

He adds, “As far as purchasing cows from Rajasthan is concerned, people buy it from wherever they can strike a cheap deal. Alwar is not outside the country. See the hill right in front of the village, that’s Alwar. Where else can we go if we cannot purchase cows from Alwar? Ramgarh is quite close by and we purchase our daily necessities from there only.”

Presently, the locals have turned cautious about cows. After the terrible incident, they are faced with a crisis of their livelihood. If they don’t rear cows, how will they support their family? Most of them see a political strategy behind the violence.

A social worker, Sawai Singh, who has reached the village in light of the incident, explains the situation, “These alleged gau rakshaks are self-proclaimed watchdogs. There are legal provisions to deal with them. There is no law that supports what they do. But what can we do about those who have left the general public at the mercy of these groups for political gain?”

“In fact, they are not gau rakshaks but extortionists,” he adds. “If they are paid money, they will allow anyone to take the cow, Hindu or Muslim alike. In case a Muslim refuses to pay, they will accuse him of cow smuggling. Had they cared so much about cows, wouldn’t they have saved thousands of cows who died at the cow shelter in Jaipur’s Hingonia? Right now, with their actions, they are tarnishing the Hindu religion, not Muslims.”

“Take a tour of the entire area. More Muslims rear cows here than Hindus. Meo Muslims have the best breeds of cows including Rathi and Tharparkar. But now there is so much fear in a community that they are afraid to even utter the word ‘cow’.”

Economic backwardness, unemployment, lack of health facilities and broken roads are issues that plague the village – but no one talks about it. Vote bank politics has left the debate centred on Hindu-Muslim, cow smuggling and cow protection.

It reminds one of famous Hindi satirist Harishankar Parsai’s story titled Ek Gaubhakt se Bhent (A meeting with a Gaubhakt). In a dialogue, he severely ridicules the entire concept:

“Swami ji, as far as I know, rather than gauraksha, the public has inflation and economic exploitation on mind. The public agitates against inflation. It goes on strike demanding hike in salary and dearness allowance. The public is fighting for economic justice and here you are, launching a gauraksha movement. What sense does it make?”

“Child, it all makes sense. See, when the public demands economic justice, then it should be engaged in other matters otherwise it turns dangerous. The public says, ‘we demand inflation and exploitation to stop, profiteering to end, and salaries to increase.’ Then, we say to it, ‘No, your basic demand should be cow protection.’ Child, we tie the public to a post like a cow when it is on its way towards economic revolution. The movement is only a distraction for the masses.”

The political message that is being sent out in the Alwar lynching case is even more disheartening for Rakbar’s family. Instead of taking lessons from all the previous incidents of lynching, the way insensitive statements are being rolled out is unfortunate.

Not only are Muslims in the area being beaten and killed, but they are being held morally responsible for their own murders. Despite all this, the locals in the area are steadfast in their belief in Hindu-Muslim unity. Political leaders only want to destroy this harmony for electoral gains, they believe.

As our team was leaving Rakbar’s house, a cow broke free and began running. Rakbar’s eldest daughter took hold of it and tied it to another post. When leaders start running amok based on communal issues, the public also needs to take control and bind them to issues of education and employment.

This report appeared first on The Wire Hindi. It has been translated from Hindi by Naushin Rehman.

Man Lynched in Gujarat Over Suspicion of Robbery

Ajmal Mohaniya became the latest casualty in the recent spate of mob violence across the country.

Dahod, Gujarat: A man was beaten to death and another injured when a mob attacked them on the suspicion of robbery in Gujarat’s Dahod district, police said yesterday.

Ajmal Mohaniya became the latest casualty in the recent spate of mob violence across the country.

A group of over a dozen people went to Kali Mahudi village in Jhalod administrative division – 35 km from here – with an aim to “commit robbery” late last night, said Limdi police station inspector P.M. Judal.

“When the villagers came to know about their movements, they gathered at a place. As soon as they saw the ‘robbers’, the mob chased them and caught hold of two of them, while the others managed to flee,” the inspector said.

The agitated villagers allegedly thrashed the two men, injuring both of them seriously by the time the police arrived, Judal said.

The police then took both the men to Dahod government hospital, where Mohaniya was declared “brought dead”. The injured person, Bharu Mathur Palas, was undergoing treatment, the official said.

Both the men were recently released from the Dahod sub-jail after serving sentences in different criminal cases, he said.

In a statement to the police, Palas said he had met Mohaniya in the jail where they were earlier lodged, a police official said. Both of them had decided to meet at the village when they were attacked by a mob of around 100 villagers wielding sharp weapons, the official said quoting Palas.

Police have lodged an FIR against around 100 villagers, he said.

Earlier this month, 28-year-old Rakbar Khan was lynched in Rajasthan’s Alwar district on suspicion of cow smuggling. A few weeks back, five nomads were beaten to death in Maharashtra’s Dhule village on suspicion of child-lifting. A fortnight ago, a woman was lynched by a mob in Madhya Pradesh on suspicion that she was a child-lifter.

The Supreme Court had recently taken a strong view of such incidents, asking the Centre to frame a separate law to tackle this menace.